2013 in Review

I rather enjoy year-end write ups. It gives me a chance to reflect on what went well, what could have been better, and what the future might hold. As a whole, 2013 was an excellent year for me and my family. As anyone who read my 2012 year in review post, I am very open about my earnings and sales stats, so consider this a disclaimer if you are uncomfortable with open numbers.

Plugins Reviewed

In late 2012, I joined the WordPress.org plugins review team, meaning I help review the plugins that get submitted to the WordPress.org plugin repository. As you are probably aware, the plugin repository has a lot of plugins. In 2013, I helped review 9,331 plugin submissions. Of these, 2,257 were rejected and 7,104 were approved. Over the course of 2013, we disabled 951 plugins due to security flaws, guideline violations, and author requests. Of the total number of plugins submitted, I only reviewed a small percentage. The real credit goes to Ipstenu for her amazing ability to crank through the review queue faster than anyone else alive.

WordCamps and Conferences Attended

Over the last 365 days I had the awesome opportunity of speaking at and attending 5 WordCamps and one other WordPress related conference, Pressnomics. I spoke at Grand Rapids, Columbus, Miami, Orlando, Phoenix (Pressnomics) and attended San Francisco. I feel truly blessed to be able to travel around the country to attend and speak at all of these WordCamps. It has given me the opportunity to meet some truly wonderful people and make some friends for life.

I Incorporated My Business

In March of 2013 I officially incorporated and became Pippin’s Pages, LLC. This business is the overhead that includes Pippin’s Plugins and Easy Digital Downloads. Finally taking the steps to make my business “official” in the eyes of the state of Kansas was extremely important to me for several reasons. First, it gave more credence to the business. Second, it allowed me to create a better separation of business assets from personal assets. Instead of all revenue my business brings in being “mine”, it now belongs to the company and I simply pay myself a salary. By paying myself a salary, I can also now much better determine the kinds of funds I have available to reinvest back into the business. And lastly, creating an LLC protects my family. If I get sued for any reason or the business is liable for some kind of damages, it is the business’s assets that are in danger, not the personal assets of my family.

Revenue

December of last year was when I made the final jump away from contract development and 100% into product sales. Last year, I was very pleased with the revenue my plugin sales brought in, and this year I am even more pleased. I’m happy to say that I managed to more than double my business’s revenue, almost entirely from plugin sales. I still do some occasional contract work, but the vast majority of my time is spent on the plugins’ business.

In 2013, the plugins on this site brought in $72,743.47 in revenue. The plugins on Code Canyon (note that many plugins were removed in early 2013) brought in $24,423, and the plugins on Mojo Code brought in $110.40.

The other side of my commercial plugins business is Easy Digital Downloads, which now takes up the vast majority of my time and is responsible for a large percentage of the revenue of Pippin’s Pages, LLC. In 2013, Easy Digital Downloads brought in $191,441.92 from extension and theme sales, which is a huge increase from just $23,396.78 in 2012. Of that $191,441.92, more than one quarter was paid directly back to other developers in extension and theme sale commissions. In total, I paid out $63,747.01 in commissions to other developers. Also out of that sales revenue, more than $29,272.13 was paid out to developers and team members for support costs, sponsored development, etc.

Last year my total revenue from commercial plugins was about $93,000, which was Easy Digital Downloads and all of my other plugins combined. This year, both combined brought in $264,185.39.

In 2013, the membership section on this site generated $15,969.45 in revenue, which is nearly double what the site brought in for 2012, $8770.10

The total revenue for Pippin’s Pages, LLC, was a little over $360,000 in 2013.

Posts Written

During 2013, I published 83 posts on this site. These posts included tutorials, news pieces, editorials, plugin releases, and more. In terms of comments, the most popular post was Why Loading Your Own jQuery is Irresponsible. Of those 83 posts, 13 were released as member-only tutorials, so about one per month. I would have liked to have released more member-only content, so as to ensure that member’s feel their membership was worth the cost (starting at $6 per month), and I will try harder in 2014 to improve that number.

Started a Podcast

In August of this year, I was invited by Brad Touesnard to join him in creating a WordPress Development podcast called Apply Filters. We have now recorded 9 episodes (with another one coming tomorrow) and have had 3 awesome guests on the show. It has been a true pleasure working with Brad on this project and I cannot wait to see where it goes in 2014.

Bought a House

In March 2013, my wife and I chose to move back to Hutchinson, KS, our hometown (or close to it) where we were both raised. We had previously been living in Lawrence, KS, where we both attended the University of Kansas. With our move to Hutchinson, we decided to buy a house (we had been renting for the past several years). After looking for a few months, we were able to buy a beautiful house in a fantastic, safe neighborhood. We can leave our doors unlocked and the garage open without ever worrying about potential break-ins.

Our street

And The Most Important of All

No matter how much money is made or spent, what kind of house is bought, how much is paid out in commissions, how many plugins are written, and how many WordCamps I attend, none of it will ever be more important than this:

Great job! Really makes me want to start to develop some premium themes. I’ve been thinking about it for a long time, but have been trying to figure out how to balance client work with creating new products. I think I’ve just been worried about being able to support it well, as I’ve seen the support boards and there are a ton of questions on them. That just makes me nervous. Keep up the great work!

Congratulations on a great year. You are an inspiration to many WordPress developers around the world. This end of the year round up will motivate many others to follow your footsteps. I truly admire the time and effort you put into free plugins and providing support for them. Hoping to see you do more great things in 2014, Good luck.

Great write-up, Pippen! I appreciate the numbers, as it gives me more inspiration to keep plugging away and growing my own business. You’ve been a great help and excellent resource to me and thousands of other developers out there. Not only for your vast range of plugins, but also for your one-to-one help which is very much appreciated. I hope you can double your income again this year! … and you’re right, the kids and family are the most important thing!